She Died Too Young (12 page)

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Ten minutes later, her mother came out of the ICU area. “Katie! I’ve been looking for you. Did you eat?”

Katie hurriedly brushed her damp cheeks. “I couldn’t face the thought of food.”

“Chelsea’s regained consciousness. She’s asking to see you.”

Katie felt a rush. “Let’s go.”

Inside the glass cubicle, Katie took Chelsea’s hand and squeezed. Her friend’s eyes fluttered open and focused on Katie’s face. “It feels like a truck ran over me,” Chelsea mumbled. Her words sounded slurred, and Katie knew it was from pain medications.

“I got the license number. It won’t get far.”

Chelsea attempted a smile and groaned. “I didn’t know I could hurt so bad.” She turned her head so that she could see the heart monitor. “Funny how they put your heartbeat in a box. It’s pooping out on me, isn’t it? I’m afraid, Katie.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Dr. Dawson told me there’s a chance I may get a transplant today. Bye, bye, old heart. Hello, new.”

“It’s for the best. You’ll see. You’ll feel like a brand-new person.”

“Dr. Dawson says there are others being considered. He didn’t want me to get my hopes up … you know … just in case it doesn’t work out.”

“It
could
happen.” Katie purposely avoided eye contact as she spoke.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Chelsea asked suddenly.

Katie started. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

Chelsea rolled her head on her pillow and made the line on the monitor screen jump. “Your face tells me you’ve got a secret.”

“Not true! I don’t know a thing.”

“You know my hobby is observing people. And I know you’re keeping something from me, Katie O’Roark.” Chelsea tried to seize Katie’s arm, but she was so weak, her hand dropped back to the bed helplessly. “Don’t keep anything from me.”

Shaken by the urgency in Chelsea’s voice, Katie said, “I know others have been beeped.”

“Others?”

“Others who need the organs.” Katie squirmed. If Chelsea got the heart and Jillian died, Chelsea might never forgive Katie for keeping such a secret. Her voice shook as she managed the courage to mumble, “Jillian.”

Chelsea squeezed her eyes shut. “I knew it. Deep down, I knew it. We have the same blood type. We’re too much alike.”

“Your intuition’s too sharp for your own good.” Katie felt tears edge her eyelashes.

Chelsea looked up at her pleadingly. “Never tell my parents this. Please don’t ever, but go find her, Katie. Tell Jillian for me, I hope she’s the one. Jillian deserves to be the one. Not me. Please, tell her, Katie. Please.”

I
T WAS EIGHT A.M
. before Katie could get into Jillian’s room to talk to her. Josh waited for her outside in the hall. Lying in the hospital bed, Jillian seemed as frail as a baby sparrow to Katie. Her face was ashen, and dark circles under her eyes made Katie think of a war refugee. Jillian’s mother was reluctant to leave her daughter’s side, but Jillian begged to have some time alone with Katie. “Even ten minutes,” she told her mother. Katie thought Mrs. Longado looked ready to drop.

When they were alone, Jillian reached for Katie’s hand. “Daddy called from the jet half an hour ago. They were still in the air, but he said that he and DJ will be here soon. That’ll help Mama.”

Katie knew that the organs would be arriving soon too. And that meant making the final selection.
A film of perspiration broke out on her forehead. “Are you through with your tests?”

“I think so. How’s Chelsea? Does she know I’m here?”

“I told her.”

“I hate not being able to see her. We’re right here in the same hospital, but we may as well be on separate planets.”

“Well, that’s what I’m for—Space Cadet O’Roark on call.” Katie saluted and was rewarded by Jillian’s smile, although the effort sent Jillian into a coughing spasm. When it was over, she lay on the bed gasping for breath. Alarm shot through Katie. “Should I ring for a nurse?”

“No. I want to talk to you while I can. I want you to tell Chelsea I’m pulling for her. She needs that heart.”

A lump wedged in Katie’s throat. “That’s exactly the message she asked me to give to you.”

“Just like her,” Jillian drawled. “Always wanting me to go first.”

Katie smiled. Even now, sick as she was, Jillian imparted humor. “Good thing Lacey’s not in the competition. She’d insist she go first.”

“If she doesn’t shape up, she may be in the running for a pancreas transplant.”

“You discovered that about her quickly. She hates having diabetes so much, she denies it. I don’t know what we’re going to do with that girl.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Katie listened to the hiss of the oxygen tank. From outside the room came the name of a doctor being paged
over the speaker system and the rattle of breakfast food trays being brought onto the floor. The trappings of the hospital never changed; the sounds had been the same when she’d been a patient.

“Thank you for taking me to Jenny House with you,” Jillian said.

“It wouldn’t have been right
not
to take you.”

“And for including me on Amanda’s mountain too.”

“I know she would have approved.”

“I wish I could see Chelsea,” Jillian lamented. “You know what all this waiting makes me feel like?”

“I know what it made me feel like,” Katie told her.

“But you weren’t aware you were in some kind of competition for the heart you needed.”

“That’s true. What you’re going through is worse.”

“I’ll bet this is what those Miss America contestants feel like while they’re waiting for the judges to call their names.”

“I don’t think I get your meaning.”

Jillian rotated her thin shoulders. “I’ve seen the girls on TV standing up on stage. They’ve been on preview for a million people. They’ve done their best, performed, looked their best. Then they just have to stand and wait for a computer to tally up a bunch of judges’ scores and call out the winning name.”

Katie was intrigued by Jillian’s analogy. She’d never much thought about how awaiting a transplant
could compare to a beauty pageant! But she did agree that waiting for a transplant donor
was
a little like a contest. “You may be right. I’ve watched beauty contests. It must be tough to stand there and keep smiling while you’re waiting for your name to be called.”

“And think about the expression on the winner’s face when her name is announced.”

“Stunned disbelief. I know that’s what I’d feel.”

“Maybe because no one expects it to be their name. You always think it’s going to be the other girl’s.”

All at once, Katie got an inkling into what Jillian was trying to say. “You’re
convinced
it’s going to be someone else,” Katie said slowly. “You
expect
it to be someone else. But down in your heart, you want to hear them call out your name.”

“The announcer goes through the list of runners-up until he’s down to two contestants. They stand there under the lights, wearing their hopes and dreams on their faces. They hang on to one another’s hands. The announcer says, ‘If for some reason the winner can’t fulfill her duties as Miss America, then the first runner-up will be crowned in her place.’ ’ Jillian paused to take deep breaths of fresh oxygen.

“Of course, no one wants to be second,” she continued. “Everybody knows second-best never gets to wear the crown. But the announcer looks at his card anyway and says, ‘First runner-up is …’ Then the camera cuts to the winner’s face, and the loser fades into the background. Because nobody
ever remembers who
almost
won. Miss America is the important one. And that’s the way it should be.”

Katie considered Jillian’s words carefully, feeling the girl’s anguish. Jillian wanted to be a transplant recipient. She wanted to be the one chosen. But not at the expense of her best friend. “No matter how it turns out,” Katie said to Jillian, “I believe something good can come out of the worst of situations.”

“Like you and Josh?”

“Yes. That was a good thing that came out of a bad thing. Another was the One Last Wish Foundation coming out of Jenny Crawford’s dying. And Jenny House coming from her grandmother.”

Jillian sighed. “And if I hadn’t been born sick, I’d never have met Chelsea. No matter how things turn out today, she was the best part of this whole thing.”

“I’ll tell her you said so.” Katie knew their discussion had sapped Jillian’s remaining strength. She said her goodbyes, promising to return once she’d checked on Chelsea.

Jillian’s parents and brother came through the door. Katie hung back while they each hugged Jillian. She heard DJ say, “I brought you something.” He dug in his jeans pocket and took out a piece of tissue.

“What is it?” Jillian wanted to know.

Katie couldn’t help noticing that her brother’s presence perked Jillian up substantially.

“Unwrap it and see.”

The paper rustled. “It’s hair from Windsong’s mane, isn’t it?”

DJ looked pleased with himself. “I curried him last night, braided the longest hairs together, and wrapped it up for you.”

“You always know how to make me happy.”

DJ looked pleased with himself. “I was planning on bringing it to you this weekend, but when Mom called this morning at the crack of dawn …” He didn’t complete the sentence.

Again, Katie started toward the door. She stepped aside for two doctors entering the room. She felt her heart begin to hammer and knew something important was about to happen. Jillian’s family instinctively gathered around her bed, like wagons circling a homestead for protection, and looked at the doctors expectantly. Katie was the outsider. She made herself leave so the doctors could talk freely.

She tossed Jillian a lingering look. Jillian’s haunted eyes told her,
“I can handle whatever they say.”
Katie stepped into the hall, where Josh still waited.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I think the decision’s been made,” Katie whispered. She felt lightheaded, as if she’d run too fast in a higher altitude. “Do you think they’ve come to say she’s the one? Oh, Josh, if she is, then I have to get back to Chelsea.”

“Hang on,” Josh declared, grabbing her arm to keep her from bolting off down the hall.

Katie began to shiver as if a frigid wind had
blown down the corridor. “I’m scared. Josh. Really scared.”

He wrapped her in his arms. “There’s nothing you can do, Katie. Just like there was nothing I could do when they told me my brother was brain dead. Nothing except give away his body parts.”

She realized that he was reliving the horror of his brother’s death all over again. She felt awful, somehow responsible for making him go through it one more time because she’d asked him to come to the hospital in the first place. “I’m sorry,” she said, through chattering teeth.

They clung to one another, but the holding didn’t bring them closer together. Instead of a bond of sharing, she felt as if a blade of pain were dividing them. Separating and slicing them apart. Feeling shredded emotionally, Katie pulled away.

Josh’s expression was one of devastation. Like someone who’d seen something too horrible to relate.
My fault
, Katie thought. All of it—from needing Aaron’s heart to forcing Josh to be with her right now—was her fault. She might have turned and run away except that DJ came barreling out of his sister’s room, almost knocking them over.

Katie seized his shirt. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“The doctors said she has antibodies in her blood.” DJ looked stricken, on the verge of exploding.

“I don’t understand—”

“From transfusions during the surgery they did
on her a long time ago.” Katie vaguely recalled hearing Jillian explain about an operation on her heart when she’d been a child. Surgery that hadn’t worked. “She needs an extra test to check it out. The test will take another four or five hours.” DJ’s voice was shaking, and his fists were balled. “She won’t be getting a transplant today. Not today.”

Katie stood, stunned and rooted to the floor. Jillian Longado had just been named first runner-up in the contest for her life.